Kaliati to answer criminal charges

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has charged former Malawi Cabinet minister Patricia Kaliati and two others in connection with the admission of 76 pupils into various government secondary schools in the Shire Highlands Education Division (Shed).

Kaliati—whose last Cabinet post was Information and Civic Education in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration—has, alongside her brother Clement Nkuya, been charged with influencing or inducing a public officer to abuse office contrary to Section 25B (2) of the Corruption Practices Act (CPA).

This subsection states: “Any person who uses his influence on, or induces or persuades, a public officer to use, misuse or abuse his public office, or his position, status or authority as a public officer, for such person’s advantage or for the advantage of another person or to obtain, directly or indirectly, for such person or for another person any advantage, wealth, property, profit or business interest shall be guilty of an offence.”

On the other hand, former Ministry of Education officer, Oscar Maganga, will answer abuse of public office charge contrary to Section 25B (1) of the CPA.

The said subsection states: “Any public officer who uses, misuses or abuses his public office, or his position, status or authority as a public officer, for his personal advantage or for the advantage of another person or to obtain, directly or indirectly, for himself or for another person, any advantage, wealth, property, profit or business interest shall be guilty of an offence.”

Both Kaliati and Maganga have in previous interviews denied any wrongdoing.

The trio’s indictment follows Weekend Nation’s expose in 2009 of how Kaliati—then Gender, Children and Community Development Minister—influenced Ministry of Education officials to admit the 76 students into various secondary schools in Shed.

All the 76 students were dismissed from the five secondary schools when the Ministry of Education discovered the wrongdoing much later.

Investigation

ACB launched an investigation, which concluded that Kaliati and others may have committed offences under the Corrupt Practices Act (CPA).

According to the charge sheet in criminal case number 84 of 2013 that we have seen, the three have since been summoned to appear before the Chief Resident Magistrate’s Court in Blantyre on October 1 2013 to answer the charges.

The ACB’s move to prosecute the trio comes after Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Bruno Kalemba, on September 24 2012, authorised ACB to proceed with their prosecution.

ACB spokesperson Egrita Ndala confirmed in a written response on Wednesday that “the matter goes to court on October 1 2013 for plea”. This is more than four years after investigations were launched and at least three years after the probe was concluded.

Ndala said the matter has taken long because it involved extensive investigations as deduced from the number of pupils involved as the bureau had to interview a lot of people to establish the matter.

But ACB investigative documents we have seen show that the bureau finalised its interim investigations in March 2010 and that the DPP issued ACB with the first consent to prosecute on July 8 2011.

The DPP’s office also confirmed in an interview with The Nation last year that it granted consent for ACB to prosecute Kaliati and two others for abuse of office, corruption and forgery.

“With regard to prosecution of the matter, kindly refer to ACB because even though the DPP is the overall prosecuting officer, the ACB are the body prosecuting this matter,” said Ministry of Justice spokesperson Apoche Itimu in July last year.

Abuse of power and threats

The ACB investigation report has alleged details of how Kaliati threatened officials and reportedly used her powers to secure secondary school places in defiance of laid-down protocol and procedures in an effort to secure votes from the families she helped.

Just months before the May 19 2009 general elections, Kaliati allegedly coerced education officials at the ministry headquarters and Shed to admit 76 students from her constituency to five secondary schools without following procedures.

The report alleges that Kaliati influenced admissions of students to Phalombe, Mulanje, Thyolo, Luchenza and Chiradzulu secondary schools as a campaign tool to win votes in the 2009 parliamentary elections.

The ACB found the conduct of Kaliati, her brother Nkuya and assistant chief education officer Maganga wanting in the way they manipulated the system to place the said students in secondary schools without the minister responsible knowing.

“On September 22 2009, the Anti-Corruption Bureau received a complaint alleging that the minister of Gender and Child Development, Hon. Patricia Kaliati, allegedly admitted 77 Standard Eight pupils, whom she described as needy, into secondary schools within the Shire Highlands Education Division. The admission of the 77 pupils has led to the interdiction of the assistant chief education officer, Mr. Oscar Maganga, who assisted the minister,” reads the report in introduction.

Maganga was cleared of wrong doing through an internal mechanism and—at least as of July last year—had returned to duty as district education manager for Ntchisi, according to Education Ministry publicist at the time, Lindiwe Chide, who we spoke to in an interview in July last year.

There is a three-tier process followed in admitting students to government secondary schools as laid down in Ministry of Education procedures which may not have been followed in the Kaliati case.

Normal school selection

Normally, the ministry selects students into Form One using Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLC) examination results administered by the Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb).

However, some selected students do not report for classes in Form One for various reasons. In this case, the vacancies created are filled through a second selection of students.

In the second selection, the ministry considers the next lot of PSLC candidates with better grades. If vacancies still exist, the ministry admits students into secondary schools based on requests in writing, from guardians as well as students who wish to be considered for a place in secondary school.

In some cases, the ministry upgrades students from community day secondary schools to national boarding secondary schools. The ministry also considers written requests from guardians and students into forms Two and Four.

Both in second selections into Form One and admissions into Forms One to Four, the office of the director of secondary education in the ministry deploys a memo to the Minister of Education through the Principal Secretary seeking approval to fill vacancies in secondary schools.

These are the procedures that the ACB alleges were not followed in the way Kaliati, Maganga and Nkuya convinced education division management and head teachers in the concerned schools to admit wards of Kaliati’s prospective voters.

Kaliati has always denied flouting procedures, challenging The Nation in an interview last year: “Which procedures are you talking about? I didn’t do anything wrong in that issue.

“Whatever you and ACB may conclude, go and find out the procedures at the Ministry of Education,” she added last July, laughing off assertions that she may be prosecuted.

Kaliati’s alledged wrongdoing

But the ACB report claims that interviews with Ministry of Education officials, head teachers, DPP constituency officials in Mulanje West, students and parents all pointed to wrongdoing on the part of Kaliati and her co-accused.

In total, ACB interviewed 27 people.

“On 24th April 2009, Mr. O B E Maganga, assistant chief education officer in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, wrote the education division manager for Shire Highlands Education Division on behalf of the Secretary to the ministry to advise her on the admission of 76 students within Shire Highlands Education Division Secondary Schools,” reads the report.

According to ACB findings, this led to illegal admissions of 33 students in Form One, 13 in Form Two, 21 in Form Three and nine in Form Four at Luchenza, Thyolo, Phalombe, Mulanje and Chiradzulu secondary schools combined.

Apparently, the same list of names attached to Maganga’s letter reference number 1/7/10 dated 24 April 2009, was also delivered to Shed by Kaliati’s constituency governor Bob Maonga.

ACB alleges that these names were collected by Peter Chigwenembe, Mulanje West DPP constituency secretary, before the May 2009 elections.

While the list was delivered to Shed, Kaliati reportedly also sent the same list to all the five concerned secondary schools.

“Mr. Maonga confirmed to have been sent by Hon. Patricia Kaliati to deliver the envelope containing names of students admitted to various secondary schools through Hon. Kaliati’s influence,” claims the report.

The report alleges that before the desk officer for secondary schools at Shed, Roseby Mahambuwa, could dispatch the names to the concerned secondary schools, she was informed by head teachers that they had already received the lists.

Weekend Nation

first broke the story on September 19 2009 at which time the then principal secretary in the Ministry of Education Moffat Chitimbe said procedures were flouted in the admission of the students.

Our follow-up stories also revealed that most of the pupils that Kaliati allegedly pushed into secondary schools actually failed PSLC and were, therefore, not eligible for the places.